Intensas

Something (bad) happens when they call us intense or when we feel as such. Especially when men tell us, especially when so many women report discomfort when being questioned with that word. It is a diffuse malaise but at the same time closely associated with actions such as asking, pointing, getting angry, complaining, showing emotions, feeling, setting limits. It seems pertinent to wonder if behind that somewhat slippery word -it does not have any negative connotation a priori- a story has been constructed that serves to make us feel bad, to question ourselves. The 'intense' kindly shows us where the limits are and what happens if you cross them. Our mystique of femininity has nothing to do with the mask of happy housewives, but with the fight for our identity: we don't want to be for others, we want to win back what we were told we should be. We don't want to be told how we should feel, we want to be able to live what we feel. We do not want to downplay what happens to us, we want what happens to us to have the place it deserves. We don't want to smile to decorate the lives of others, we want to decorate ours and save our smiles for when we feel like it. We do not want to feel singled out for complaining or asking, we want the complaint and the demand to be signals to attend to. The dissatisfaction, despondency and intangible discomfort with which we live are the product of a society that continues to make it very difficult for us and for which, curiously, the difficult ones are always us. Have we given up feeling? Have we been convinced that we are asking too much? Have we been made to believe that we have to give up ourselves in order to fit in? Do we give up on occasions as a survival strategy? Is the discomfort that we feel in the background the result of inhibiting ourselves, the -rotten- fruit of the misunderstanding we receive? Can intensity be a feminist strategy instead of something to be ashamed of?